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Against red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.

“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people pain, shame and significant harm,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop Tveit, announced during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”

“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo's main cathedral was planned to come after the apology.

This formal apology took place at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 attack that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, was given a prison term to no less than 30 years behind bars for the murders.

In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – historically excluded LGBTQ+ individuals, denying them the opportunity from joining the clergy or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as a “social danger of global proportions”.

But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples back in 1993 and by 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.

During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church started appointing LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples were permitted to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was called a first for the church.

Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Pedersen-Eriksen, who is also a gay pastor, referred to it as “a crucial act of amends” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a difficult period in the church’s history”.

As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals among us who died of Aids … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.

Worldwide, a few churches have tried to reconcile for historical treatment towards LGBTQ+ people. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it described as its “shameful” treatment, though it continues to refuse to authorize same-sex weddings within the church.

Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland last year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and family members, but held fast in its belief that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.

In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in every part of the church's activities.

“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We express our regret.”